Council considers possible changes to budget

Updated 6:24 am, Thursday, September 12, 2013

The City Council on Wednesday reviewed a series of potential amendments to San Antonio's $2.3 billion annual budget that includes easing reductions to the city's delegate agencies.

There was no clear indication how the council would vote on several proposed changes that individuals made in last-minute requests to City Manager Sheryl Sculley.

Absent from Wednesday's meeting was a proclamation that the budget would have an 11th-hour boost from higher-than-expected CPS Energy revenues. In several years, hot summers have saved the day when the council was facing cutbacks or district projects that hadn't initially been funded.

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Sculley said in an interview Wednesday that her budget staff would not be making adjustments to current revenue projections. If there's a bump later in the year, she said, the revenue would go into ending-balance coffers.

The Moody's rating agency has warned that finishing the fiscal year with too little left over could harm the city's AAA bond rating. The city can accomplish a larger ending balance by spending less or increasing revenues — or a combination of the two.

Other items under consideration Wednesday were varying scenarios on how the council might reduce its own City Council Project Fund, which currently sits at $61,818 per district. Council members use the fund in a variety of ways, from hosting fall festivals to helping fund small nonprofits in their districts. Sculley's recommendation is to reduce the amount to $35,000 each.

There have been requests to reduce it by 5 percent — the same amount that city departments were faced with cutting. Councilman Carlton Soules suggested slashing an additional $5,000 from the fund.

City staff has also recommended reducing funding by 5 percent for all delegate agencies, which are nonprofits at least partly funded through taxpayer dollars, except the Haven for Hope homeless services center. The council may also consider reducing the cuts to 2.5 percent by including Haven in the calculation.

The council is also expected to increase the city's monthly environmental fee by $1, creating more than $6.4 million in additional revenue that would restore proposed cuts to parks and remove suggested new fees and increased fees.

This also would free up general fund dollars that would restore proposed cuts to library hours, among other things. Staff had suggested closing all branch libraries one day a week.

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Soules, who is a proponent of creating a dedicated revenue stream for parks maintenance, balked at the plan.

“There are other ways to reduce fees,” he said.

In an uncommon move, Soules offered a sheet of proposed budget adjustments that was attached to Sculley's amendment-overview memo to the council.

His proposed cuts were symbolic. “It's really more of an exercise,” he said. “There are two ways: One is to raise fees, and one is to find further cuts.”

Some of Soules' symbolic cuts target two of Mayor Julián Castro's legacy projects. In the document, Soules suggests a series of reductions — including decreasing funding by half for SA2020 and the local government corporation overseeing HemisFair Park redevelopment — in order to generate capacity for other expenses.

Other suggested cuts include defunding some delegate agencies and canceling the city's memberships in several organizations.

Addressing the proposed amendments — not Soules' recommendations — Councilman Ray Lopez said he suspects that previous councils fought over where to spend and where not to spend the taxpayers dollars, even when there were substantial surpluses.

“It's been a tough road,” he said. “It is every year.”

All the current council members have been elected since the global economic crisis and have never faced a budget surplus.

The council will vote Thursday on the budget and the city's ad valorem tax rate, which will remain flat.